The Bishop of Newcastle gave a speech on the topic of the economy and economic growth during the King’s Speech debate on 22nd July 2024, highlighting the importance of local communities in relation to businesses and social enterprises:
The Lord Bishop of Newcastle: My Lords, I welcome the gracious Speech and the importance it places on economic growth. I congratulate the noble Lords, Lord Vallance and Lord Petitgas, on their excellent maiden speeches.
The Government’s bold articulation of fiscal reality, and the resistance to colluding with demands for short-term fixes, present a helpful foundation for next steps. One question is: when striving for growth, who will most feel its impact? The UK has some of the highest levels of geographic inequality in Europe. According to a survey conducted in 2022 by YouGov and the Resolution Foundation, 41% of those surveyed in the north-east felt that their region has generally declined in recent years—the highest out of any region in the UK. This feeling is not unfounded when real wages in half of the north-east’s local authorities are still below 2008 levels. The impact can be felt in take-home pay and on our high streets, and it is borne out in the investment decisions of businesses.
It is essential that the growth we strive for is for the UK in its entirety, with a particular focus on communities whose potential is not yet fully realised. I therefore welcome the emphasis this Government place on local economies, and I look forward to seeing increases in mayoral powers and local growth plans through the English devolution Bill. However, the responsibility of ensuring that everyone feels the benefits of growth should not rest solely with the Government but should be shared by us all. How can each sphere of society—businesses, charities and civic institutions—partner together so that the benefits of growth are felt more widely?
I would like to highlight the businesses and social enterprises that recognise that their success is bound up with the flourishing of the local communities that they serve. The Big River Bakery in the Shieldfield area of Newcastle is a terrific example of this very point; it is a bakery, shop, cafe, training space, and so much more—a sustainable commercial model partnering with external support, rooted in a deprived local community, and nurturing kindness and compassion in its mission to serve.
There is another bakery, founded in Newcastle in the 1950s. Today, that bakery can be found on high streets across the UK and took an 8.2% share of the UK’s food-to-go sales in 2023. I was one of the many who joined Greggs in celebrating National Sausage Roll Day last month by purchasing its limited-edition yard of sausage rolls. That is a lot of sausage rolls; other sausage roll makers are available. Greggs has experienced enormous growth as a business, but it continues to serve its communities, contributing a proportion of its profits towards the Greggs Foundation, which supports local community organisations and addresses issues of poverty and inequality by distributing upwards of £4 million in grants each year and establishing more than 800 breakfast clubs. An example of how profit and growth can be achieved, but through partnership, its impact goes further. How can our Government encourage greater partnership and social responsibility, so that more communities feel the benefits of growth?
It is clear that economic growth is the driving mission of this new Government. I believe that success will be measured by the fruits of growth. My hope is that we will work towards equitable and sustainable growth, achieved through partnership for the benefit of all.
Extracts from the speeches that followed:
Lord Livermore (Lab, Treasury): I now turn to how we will unlock private investment in the infrastructure that our economy desperately needs. Britain today is the only G7 country with investment below 20% of GDP, which holds back productivity, as observed by the noble Lords, Lord Bridges of Headley and Lord Birt, and hinders us in the competition for the industries of the future. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury, that it is not in the Government’s gift alone to reinvigorate these faltering levels of investment; the lifeblood of economic growth is business investment. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Newcastle spoke of partnership, and I agree with her. A strategic state does have a crucial role to play in partnership with the private sector. That partnership will be embodied, as my noble friends Lord McNicol of West Kilbride and Lord Chandos said, in a modern industrial strategy and a new national wealth fund. A modern industrial strategy—which, to reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter, and the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley of Knighton, will include the creative industries—enables us to work with businesses to identify those areas where Britain enjoys, or has the potential to develop, comparative advantage, but where there are currently market failures or other barriers that hold back investment.
The Church of England in Parliament 
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